High-speed chase ends with no arrest

Published 7:16 pm, Thursday, July 15, 2010

New Braunfels police have declined to arrest or charge a woman who led officers on a three-county, high-speed chase that ended with an officer shooting her with a Taser alongside a San Antonio highway earlier this week.

New Braunfels police Lt. Michael Penshorn said the department is collecting information for a case against the San Antonio woman to give to the Comal County district attorney, who could seek an indictment.

“We decided to seek criminal charges at a later date instead of making an arrest at that time,” Penshorn said.

He declined to name the woman because she has not been charged in the chase, which began in San Marcos.

McCutchen was the subject of a high-profile lawsuit against San Antonio police after her face was fractured during an altercation with officers in 2007. She was arrested after passing out at a nightclub and, handcuffed in the back of a patrol cruiser, McCutchen, then 18, slammed her head against a window, shattering it, and was punched several times in the face as she resisted officers who tried to prevent her from exiting the vehicle, according to published reports.

McCutchen sued city officials, the two officers, and the nightclub that served her alcohol when she was a minor, but a judge put the lawsuit on hold until criminal charges against her were resolved. In 2009, she was found guilty of resisting transportation, criminal mischief and attempted escape, and has appealed.

Her attorney in the federal case, Tyler Rutherford, was not aware of Monday's incident. He said they would revisit the lawsuit after the criminal appeals are decided.

“We're still fighting it,” Rutherford said.

Dvorak said a San Marcos officer tried to stop McCutchen late Monday on Interstate 35 after he saw her driving a PT Cruiser without the headlights on and abruptly changing lanes. She would not pull over and drove to New Braunfels at speeds exceeding 90 mph, Dvorak said.

She exited there and New Braunfels police took over the pursuit, following her into San Antonio, where she stopped so abruptly a patrol car hit her vehicle on IH-35 near North New Braunfels Avenue, police said.

Penshorn said an approaching officer deployed his Taser when he saw the woman in the driver's seat holding a knife and threatening to hurt herself. Police didn't arrest her and let an ambulance take her to University Hospital because she had minor injuries.

Hospital officials said no one with the name Erin McCutchen had been admitted.

McCutchen will not face any charges in San Marcos or San Antonio, officials said.

Her mother, Terri McCutchen, said she was aware that her daughter was involved in a chase with police but said she was not at liberty to say where she was.

“I don't know where she coming from or where she was headed,” her mother said. “I have no further comment.”